A police cruiser sits outside the home where a 14-year-old boy shot a home intruder, said officials. (TooLateToSave)

(Newser)
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A Phoenix teenager babysitting his siblings shot and critically wounded a home intruder, police said. The unidentified 14-year-old boy was in charge of his younger siblings, 8, 10, and 12 years old, when first a strange woman, then a man pounded on the door of the home. He raced upstairs to retrieve his father's handgun when the man broke through the door and pointed a gun at the teen, who in turn shot the suspect in the chest, according to authorities. The boy then called his parents and ran to a neighbor's house with the other children.

The suspect is expected to recover, and will be booked into jail when he's released from the hospital, Officer James Holmes told KNXV-TV. Holmes praised the teen, saying he did "exactly what he should have done." The boy's neighbor called it a "good thing that he pulled the trigger, that his dad taught him what to do; I give him a lot of props for it." Another neighbor advised parents: "Teach your children to protect themselves in the 2012 sort of world that we live in."